Bakersfield, California is well on its way to becoming known as more than just the country’s third-most important pit stop for dirt and Sonic drive ins, as Bakersfield’s own Michael McMaster has built a real-life working replica of Wall E. Or, to put it another way, Johnny 5.

According to the video, McMaster, who built his remote control Wall-E bot from scratch, had previously belonged to something called “The R2D2 Builders Club.” I would give anything to attend a meeting of the Bakersfield chapter of the R2D2 Builders Club. I guarantee at least half the meetings took place around a bonfire.

McMaster and his maker buddies have spent the last five years recreating Wall-E. The resulting bot in the video above has been made entirely from scratch. Previously McMaster had worked on a recreation of R2D2, but the Wall-E posed a couple of unique challenges.

From a design perspective, there is no real-life source material for Wall-E. While George Lucas and company created several actual R2D2s for the Star Wars films, Wall-E has always been entirely animated. It turns out that throughout the film, Wall-E’s proportions and design don’t remain entirely consistent. (McMaster has contacted the folks a Pixar and they say his design is, you know, pretty enough.) [Gizmodo]

Of course, it’s not entirely a “real-life Wall E,” because it’s missing that all-important component: the capacity to love.

Even aside from the fact that he built a working remote-control robot entirely from scratch, you could tell McMaster belongs to the Bakersfield intelligentsia because none of his garage dogs are pregnant.

Hmm… maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here but has anybody stopped to think that maybe this is how Wall-E came to be? Some day ol’ McMaster here is gonna need a hand on the farm and he’ll install some AI interface into WALL-E then BOOM!! Earth’s atmosphere becomes deadly due to our McD’s infused obesity farts rendering the planted uninhabitable and voila… we have the premise of the movie.

Pretty sure if you ever meet anyone who self-identifies as a ‘maker’ you’re legally obliged to punch them in the throat. They’re like boxcar hobos without the romantic appeal or the thrill that at any moment they might stab you on a whim.